I just heard this 2 weeks ago but Firex recalled a lot of their CO and combo Smoke/CO detectors for false readings.Like I said I just heard it from the supply house so if anyone recently bought one, check it out with the manufacturer.As an electrician (as a lot of you already know I am ) when we wire new systems at 120 volts with battery back up, only BRK has a UL listed combination unit that will pass inspection. You can use any hard wired or plug in detector that is CO only but if you want that less cluttered look on your ceiling, go with BRK. They sound a CO warning verbally (sorry, but in English only) telling you where the cause is (user programmable location) at all CO detector locations and at what level it is in PPM. OK so thats cool and I have these and trust them but I also have the digital display ones also. They tell you as you are sitting by the stove, not just when in alarm state, what the number is at a glance. You get to nip a problem before a detector goes off and you all feel nauseous. You could go through a long flu season and realize later it was CO levels that just weren't setting the detectors off! How much brain damage did that cause your children over months of not knowing? The digital ones are the extra protection I believe everyone should have! If you know me, you know I take my job seriously. I try to go above the norm.OK, off my soap box.

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I have all Kidde detectors with the digital read out. Battery operated only. One thing I do, is as soon as I buy a detector I write the date on it with a permenent marker. I then buy a new on every three years and throw out the oldest when it get to five years old. That way I am always rotating them. I also check the readouts at least once everyday when I am going by them as well as the battery status. I do the same with all of our smoke detectors as well.

coal-cooker wrote:I have all Kidde detectors with the digital read out. Battery operated only. One thing I do, is as soon as I buy a detector I write the date on it with a permenent marker. I then buy a new on every three years and throw out the oldest when it get to five years old. That way I am always rotating them. I also check the readouts at least once everyday when I am going by them as well as the battery status. I do the same with all of our smoke detectors as well.

Great Advice! We started doing this on New Year's Day because it's easy to remember the day to check and update all of our monitors.

Coal-cooker has a good idea of rotating the detectors so you are always within the "target range" of a fresh detector. If you have 2 (which you should), rotate them by date so you know you will at least have one fresh one with viable readings.

Intresting event happened to me the other day. I went by the detector in the hall and checked it and it was reading 18. I reset it and watched and it started reading 18 again. I checked the stove and nothing looked out of the ordinary, so I opened the windows and aired the place out good and rest the detector. A few hours later it was reading in the 30s. It then dawned on me, that I had put a trickle charger on a car battery in the basement. Once I shut off the charger and aired out the house again, no more reading. Apparently the detector is sensitive to small amounts of hydrogen gas that is given off when charging a battery. Learn something new everyday.

I am new to coal this year I got a few co detectors (only one that has a read out) and I am see a reading of about 26 is this something to be conserned about? I have reset the detector several times and once it is reset it goes right back 26 again any advice